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Arthur Guy

أرتور غي

Notable figure 1874–1945 · Source: ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Humaid, Aʿmal al-mustashriqin al-ʿarabiyya fi al-muʿjam al-ʿarabi: dirasa wa-taqwim (PhD thesis, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, 1433 AH), p. 152; al-Muqtabas, vol. 2 (Cairo, 1325 AH/1907), pp. 234–248, 387–395, 430–436, 529–535; Ibn Qutayba, Kitab al-Ashriba, ed. Muhammad Kurd ʿAli (Damascus: al-Majmaʿ al-ʿIlmi al-ʿArabi, 1366 AH/1947), introduction, p. 10; Najib al-Aq · Second source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, authority record: Guy, Jean-Arthur (1874-1945)

From France; worked in Syria, Libya, Tanzania, Palestine, Türkiye and Egypt

Field: Text editing

Affiliation

Editor of Ibn Qutayba's Kitab al-Ashriba (1907)

Biography

Arabic sources spell his name «أروتوركي» (Arutorki), the form in which he signed his edition in al-Muqtabas and in which Muhammad Kurd ʿAli names him. Born in Besançon, he studied at the School of Oriental Languages in Paris under Hartwig Derenbourg and Octave Houdas, and learned Arabic, Turkish and Persian. He served as a French dragoman and consul in Damascus, Tripoli, Zanzibar, Haifa and Izmir, and was elected to the Arab Academy of Damascus. He published Ibn Qutayba's Kitab al-Ashriba in al-Muqtabas in 1325 AH / 1907, vol. 2 (pp. 234–248, 387–395, 430–436, 529–535), under the heading «Suhuf al-mansiyya», describing the manuscript he used and choosing between the two versions of its opening. In the introduction to his own edition (Damascus, 1947), Kurd ʿAli says his friend published about two thirds of the book; Guy's text ends at p. 75 of Kurd ʿAli's edition.